Thankful Thursday- One Family ~ Carrows of Delmarva and North Carolina

                                                          Carrow House  Bath NC
So very thankful today that after seven years of DNA testing and eleven years of genealogical work we know that  at least one line from the North Carolina Carrows and at least one line from the Delaware Carrows descend from the same male. We are all distant and not so distant cousins. Would we know this without the advent of DNA testing? Quite possibly not as definitively.

I should really say that today I am very thankful that I live in such a time where DNA testing and computer research has become commonplace and affordable. Thankful also that I have been able to afford such a hobby financially and time wise, as I could have been still working. Thanks Jim!

I am enraptured at the serendipity that led Jim and I to North Carolina in retirement where I happened upon the research on our family. Thankful that I found distant cousin Don who took this journey with me. Thankful indeed for the new cousins who are just as thrilled as we are.

Just imagine, a man came from the British Isles very, very, long ago and despite all odds founded a small family that still exists. When John Carrow came in 1643 the Britain that he left was barely past the middle ages to come to a country where  conditions were  primitive and wild. Living conditions were stark at best and abysmal at worst. That he had one or more children who lived to move up and down the eastern seaboard and themselves have families is astounding.

We do not know for sure if John Carrow was joined by brothers or cousins whose names were not registered and if he himself was the patriarch  of all of us. The research suggests that he may have been. We are all grateful for whatever life event led to his journey and now, of course, hope that we will finally be able to figure out from whence he came.

Surely a day to celebrate our family.

                                      Idalia Manor ~ Carrow farm in St.Georges Delaware

Surname Saturday ~ Kirwans of Meath

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday, thanks to a price reduction at Roots Ireland.ie I was able to locate the death certificates for Patrick Kirwan's father Michael and his grandfather Sylvester. They lived in Ladyrath Rathkenny Meath and Moynalty Meath , an unknown county for me.

Patrick Kirwan was my father's Great grandfather who he knew well.. He took Patrick as his confirmation name. Pat, according to my Dad had a wooden leg. I assume this from a runaway wagon accident which cost him his wife and newborn baby in June 1890. He was a liveryman for the town of Swedesboro. Patrick's wife Lizzie Sweeney delivered a daughter, Maggie, prematurely from the anxiety of Pat's runaway accident. Lizzie died a few days after the delivery and Maggie within the month.

Sarah "Sadie" Kirwan was my great grandmother,she was very young when her mother died. Patrick
apparently found another wife Mary Murray, from Carlow Ireland at some point. They have a daughter Katherine born in 1893. I find Mary and Patrick with Sadie, Sylvester and Katie in the 1900 census and Pat and Mary with Sylvester in 1910. Sylvester dies of TB I believe in 1912. At some point after that Mary and Patrick do not seem to live together but continue to state they are married until their deaths.

Pat was immersed in a murder trial on circumstantial evidence in Swedesboro somewhere around 1894. He and a man named Delaney Armstrong were accused of murdering a man named Gans. A body had washed up on the Delaware shoreline which was declared to be his. Kirwan and Armstrong were last in his company and had argued with him. The public defender did not believe the men were guilty but the trail went on.

At the end of the trial, amazingly enough, the actual body of Mr. Gans washed up on the shore. He had drowned. There were no marks on his body, his clothes were identified as were documents on his person. Patrick and Delaney Armstrong were freed.

Mary Kirwan, his wife was at his side during the trial although it was noted that they were legally separated. They reconciled after the trial and apparently lived together until 1910 or so. Patrick's last residence was in New Jersey in 1930 and he dies in 1939 in the State Hospital in Trenton. They are interred together in Montgomery County PA. with Patrick's only son Sylvester.

I suspect that Pat may not have been the ideal husband although I do not know that. Possibly just a few bad breaks, the "luck of the Irish", he might have said.